"How many projects are you working on right now? [...] If your answer is anything like mine once was, it’s likely too many – way too many.

The process goes a bit like this: Something motivates us to make a change. We’re excited. We set all kinds of big goals. We create a plan to make it happen. We’re still excited. Then we look at the list. It’s twenty pages long. We don’t know where to start. We get overwhelmed.

We don’t do a damn thing.

We need a system that puts our focus only on the most important. That’s how results happen. Thankfully Warren Buffett just taught me such a process."

"One of my first interviewees made me aware of this core piece of elder wisdom. I asked her to help me to understand the sources of her happiness. She thought for a moment and then offered the explanation that could serve as a motto for the elders: 'In my 89 years, I’ve learned that happiness is a choice – not a condition.'

[...]

Stop worrying. The elders deeply regret time wasted worrying about things that never happened. So looking back from the end of life, they take a radical view of worry. As one elder told me: 'Worry wastes your life.' In the book, I give readers specific tips offered by the elders for breaking the worry habit – and they work!"